Many solutions exist to provide capabilities to consumers or other bill recipients for online processing and payment of bills. In one instance, a consumer who receives a hardcopy or paper bill can proceed to pay the bill electronically using an online payment and processing system. The systems may be offered through the consumer's financial institution, by the biller, or by a third party service provider. To process an online payment for a hardcopy bill, there are many steps to be performed and hurdles to overcome in order to achieve successful payment, particularly if the consumer has never paid the biller before. For example, a consumer typically has to first set up the biller as a personal biller of the consumer, which may include selecting from a list and/or manually entering in biller information. In addition, the consumer then has to enter the payment particulars (e.g., a payment amount and payment date) each time a new payment is to be processed. Such manual data entry processes are susceptible to user error (e.g., miskeying information, etc.) and can be time consuming.
These hurdles and possible complications to process bill payment requests based on hardcopy bills may adversely impact the adoption of electronic bill payment. Consumers may ultimately conclude it is easier to write and mail a paper check with the bill's payment coupon in the provided envelope, as has conventionally been the practice.